Moral essays. With an English translation by J.W. Basore

ON ANGER, III. XXI. 1-5This man raged against a people unknown andinoffensive, yet able to feel his anger : Cyrus, however,raged against a river. For when, with thepurpose of taking Babylon, he was hastening to war—in which the favourable opportunity is of theutmost importance—he attempted to ford the riverGyndes, then in full flood, though such an undertakingis scarcely safe even after the river has feltthe heat of siunmer and is reduced to its smallestvolume. There, when one of the white horseswhich regularly drew the royal chariot was sweptaway, the king became mightily stirred. And sohe swore that he would reduce that river, which wascarrying away the retinue of the king, to such proportionsthat even women could cross it and trampleit under foot. To this task, then, he transferred allhis preparations for war, and ha\ang lingered thereatlong enough to cut one hundred and eighty runwaysacross the channel of the river, he distributed itswater into three hundred and sixty runnels, whichflowing in different directions left the channel dr^'.And so he sacrificed time, a serious loss in importantoperations, the enthusiasm of his soldiers, whichwas crushed by the useless toil, and the opportunityof attacking the enemy unprepared, while he wagedagainst a river the war he had declared againsta foe. Such madness—for what else can you callit ?—has befallen Romans also. For Gaius Caesardestroyed a very beautiful villa near Herculaneumbecause his mother had once been imprisoned in it,and by his very act gave publicity to her misfortune; for while the villa stood, we used to sailby unconcerned, but now people ask why it wasdestroyed.309